"Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas."
Nine words. Two enormous cosmic problems... and then an errand. That's the joke. That's the whole movie: a man facing the end of the world who is mostly annoyed by the inconvenience of it.
Voice actor Neal Vaadeland (Fargo, North Dakota, don't you know) joins Nate to break down Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness (1992). It's the third Evil Dead film, except Universal wanted it to stand on its own, so nobody got to call it that. It bombed in theaters, found its people on home video, and became the gateway into the franchise for a whole lot of us... Nate and Neal included.
The tagline is a textbook rule of three with a deflating last beat (the fancy name is a "bathos triple"). It hands you the stakes AND the joke in one breath, and it sounds exactly like Ash. True to this show's running heartbreak, no copywriter was ever credited for it.
ALSO ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK:
- The OTHER poster, which sells a completely different movie: "How can you destroy an army that's already dead?"
- A deep bench of runner-up taglines, from "1 man, 1 million dead. The odds are just about even." to "They're looking for a few dead men."
- Why it isn't called Medieval Dead
- The ratings board slapping an NC-17 on a movie full of talking skeletons (Bruce Campbell has THOUGHTS)
- The original bummer ending, the happy reshoot nobody wanted, and a Little Shop of Horrors parallel
- Why Evil Dead 2 feels like a remake: Sam Raimi couldn't get the rights to his own movie
- The Mini-Ashes: real performers in prosthetic Bruce Campbell chins and noses, with Bruce acting to a metronome
- Bruce Campbell, "the greatest reverse actor ever"
- Danny Elfman's one-song cameo, Bill Pope's all-night shoot, and Embeth Davidtz shooting this BEFORE Schindler's List... then watching it come out after
- Tangents, as promised: sneaking into Starship Troopers, Peter Jackson's Meet the Feebles, and Nate's dad's favorite joke in the whole movie
🎙️ Follow Nate Begle: https://www.natebegle.com | @natebegle on YouTube and @natebeglevo on Discord.
🎙️ NEAL VAADELAND
Neal Vaadeland is a voice actor based in Fargo, North Dakota... who started recording his voice the day he got his hands on a cassette recorder in small-town Northern Minnesota, with credits spanning commercials, corporate narration, radio spots, video games, animation, and children's books.
🔗 nealvaadeland.com | @nealvaadeland on Instagram | @nealvaadeland on YouTube | @nealvaadeland on TikTok
👻 Catch Neal as Louis "Hoots" in Ghost Clown University: ghostclownu.com
I coach voice actors 1:1. If you want to work on your craft, the door's here → calendly.com/begleboothstudios/vo-coaching
The Poster Says... The movie tagline podcast.
Because somebody had to.
